What Are They Riding Now?
Trek has really stepped up big to the "triathlon plate" and announced that they will unify and broaden their presence in triathlon under the Trek Factory Racing banner. They added Greg and Laura Bennett, Mathias Hecht, James Hodge and Lauren Goss to their roster of existing athletes that includes Lindsey Corbin, Tim O’Donnell, Julie Dibens, Melanie McQuaid, Joe Gambles, Matt Lieto, Rebekah Keat, Ben Kanute and Fraser Cartmell and that team will race rek Speed Concept 9 bikes with Campagnolo EPS components and Bontrager wheels.
Furthermore Team Timex will switch the bikes from Quintana Roo to Trek moving forward and so in addition to the big group of age groupers Pros Richie Cunningham, Matt Russell, Joe Umphenour, Daniel Bretcher, Jackie Arendt, Christine Anderson, Kelly Fillnow, and Lisa Ribes (Roberts) will all be on Trek Speed Concept bikes moving forward.
Scott Sports snagged Brit Jodie Swallow from Cervelo after the big Team TBB fallout and they also now have Aussie Annabel Luxford who previously raced on a Jamis. These two fast females now join Sebastian Kienle, Luke McKenzie, Marino Vanhoenacker and Cyril Viennot.
Aussie Tim Reed and American Kelly Williamson joined the Felt team that already contains Mirinda Carfrae, Daniela Ryf, Andi Bocherer and Josh Amberger. Plus Brit Emma-Kate Lidbury now officially joined the Felt brand after riding their bikes recently.
Cervelo took over quite a few athletes that before raced under the TBB banner and added a few more, but not all of that is finalized. Rumor though has it that Aussie Emma Moffatt and American Andrew Yoder are among the new athletes.
We announced earlier that Team Uplace-BMC got larger and much more International for 2014 and we expect to see many good results from that squad. For those who have missed it, new on that team are Dirk Bockel, Romain Guillaume, Will Clark, Liz Blatchford, Helle Frederiksen and Corinne Abraham and they will all ride BMC TM01 bikes. Plus Ronnie Schildknecht bolstered the team but he already was on a BMC. Abraham, made the switch to BMC mid last year.
Ritchie Nicholls and Eimaer Mullan were previously also part of Team TBB and these two athletes have signed up to ride a Viner, a brand now owned by Planet X honcho Dave Loughran.
A few Pros also seem to be currently in limbo. Germans Andreas and Michael Raelert have not yet announced a new bike sponsor, and Aussie James Seear and Kiwi Callum Millward are also still looking.
| Previous ride | New ride | Date of change | |
| Richie Cunningham (AUS) | Blue Triad SL | Trek Speed Concept | February 2014 |
| Matthew Russell (USA) | Quintana Roo Ilicito | Trek Speed Concept | February 2014 |
| Dirk Bockel (LUX) | Trek Speed Concept | BMC TM01 | January 2014 |
| Will Clarke (GBR) | Focus | BMC TM01 | January 2014 |
| Romain Guillaume (FRA) | Swift | BMC TM01 | January 2014 |
| Greg Bennett (USA) | BMC TM01 | Trek Speed Concept | January 2014 |
| Mathias Hecht (SUI) | Cervelo | Trek Speed Concept | January 2014 |
| James Hodge (AUS) | Cannondale | Trek Speed Concept | January 2014 |
| Bjorn Andersson (SWE) | Hotta | Parlee | January 2014 |
| Tim Reed (AUS) | Ridley | Felt DA | January 2014 |
| Chris Baird (USA) | Felt | Quintana Roo | January 2014 |
| Matt Hanson (USA) | Cervelo P3 | Argon 18 E118 | January 2014 |
| Chris Kemp (AUS) | Trek | Falco | January 2014 |
| Clay Emge (USA) | n/a | Argon 18 E118 | January 2014 |
| Andreas Raelert (GER) | BMC | n/a | January 2014 |
| Michael Raelert (GER) | BMC | n/a | January 2014 |
| James Seear (AUS) | Blue | still looking | January 2014 |
| Callum Millward (NZL) | n/a | still looking | January 2014 |
| John Polson (AUS) | n/a | still looking | January 2014 |
| Liz Blatchford (GBR) | Fuji Norcom | BMC TM01 | January 2014 |
| Helle Frederiksen (DEN) | Look | BMC TM01 | January 2014 |
| Laura Bennett (USA) | BMC | Trek Speed Concept | January 2014 |
| Lauren Goss (USA) | Cervelo | Trek Speed Concept | January 2014 |
| Jodie Swallow (GBR) | Cervelo | Scott Plasma 3 | January 2014 |
| Meredith Kessler (USA) | Cannondale | Boardman | January 2014 |
| Eimear Mullan (IRE) | n/a | Viner | January 2014 |
| Jackie Arendt (USA) | Quintana Roo | Trek Speed Concept | February 2014 |
| Christine Anderson (USA) | Quintana Roo | Trek Speed Concept | February 2014 |
| Kelly Williamson (USA) | Quintana Roo Illicito | Felt DA | January 2014 |
| Haley Chura (USA) | Swift | Quintana Roo | January 2014 |
| Amber Ferreira (USA) | n/a | Argon 18 | January 2014 |
| Radka Vodickova (CZE) | Focus | Culprit | January 2014 |
| Emma Moffatt (AUS) | Orbea | Cervelo | January 2014 |
| Annabel Luxford (AUS) | Jamis | Scott Plasma 3 | January 2014 |
| Corinne Abraham (GBR) | Trek | BMC TM01 | July 2013 |
This is not a listing of what every sponsored Pro rides, this is meant as an update for brand changes. As you can gather there are a variety of reasons why sponsorship changes, ranging from looking for more advanced technology to not having the right current relationship / not being a high priority, and in some cases it is indeed about looking for more money. But that is typically the rarest reason for change even though it seems to be the most obvious. General support is greatly valued, and when you see that your competitor's sponsor uses him/her in ads and takes them to get fitted and to the wind tunnel, that makes some athletes stir crazy. And when whole teams or sponsors go away that actually just forces athletes to make a move.
If there are other distinctive changes of major Pros we should know about, please let us know.
[We basically updated the story from last year and thus some of the comments below are still from last year. So look at the date before responding. Cheers.]
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